Classic Poem

The great gold sun goes dropping, dropping down
Into the molten clouds that fill the west,
The golden sheaves turn to a dusky brown,
The young moon casts aside her silvery vest
And like a girl walks tip toe down the blue
Blue stair toward her chamber in the sea;
Gulls raise their mournful monody anew,
And bumbling by goes home the drowsy bee.

O serene hour, than all thy fair compeers
More beautiful art thou, whose solemn eyes
Hold memories thy loveliness endears,
As tranquil pools the ever-varying skies;
Thy thoughts are longer than the thoughts of morn,
All reverie hast thou in that quiet face;
Thou harvester of hours that lie forlorn,
Gleaner of hours Time gathers in apace.

Lady of Twilight, let me walk with thee,
Here where the sward is clean: where sky and earth
Are as two friends with hands linked tenderly,
Not separate, scorning each the other's worth
As in dull cities: here, where the great hills
Like thews o' the world stretch prone beneath our feet:
Where Silence her alembic calm distils
To bathe the mind fretful with noontide's heat.

For lady, I too love to muse alone
And press the day into one draught of thought,
When all the restless noisy hours have flown
And solitude with memory is fraught;
Then to me too, high purposes shine clear
As yonder star that looks with single eye:
Then all I ever loved grows yet more dear,
And all I ever hoped comes yet more nigh.

Slowly thou braidest stars into thy hair,
And palely dark thy mantle now appears;
Poppies about thy girdle thou dost wear,
And little dew-drop pearls begem thy ears.
Ah, must thou go to meet that dark-browed lord
Who now bestrides the east with all his train?
Then on my eyes thy parting kiss afford,
Seal of thy promise ere thou come again.

The sunset fires pale on the eastern hills,
The young girl moon lies sleeping 'neath the waves,
A deeper silence every valley fills,
Night on the sky his characters engraves;
Dark stand the sheaves, like lovers loth to part,
A wandering breeze blows coldly from the sea,
Then far and near the wakeful night-birds start
Lone cries that are her sad adieu to me.